Some context.
The Zionist enterprise is engaged in a Long War against forces that
oppose a Jewish presence in the land of Israel. Anywhere in the land of Israel.
In the course of the past 100 years the voice of Arab moderation has been stamped
out. Extinguished, The Arab moderates are in the cemeteries – killed by their own people.
On some flimsy pretext that Jews visiting the Temple Mount has changed the
"status quo" or that such visits pollute the Muslim holy place, Arab
leaders have engaged in frothing-at-the-mouth incitement.
I'm talking now about
comparative Palestinian moderates such as the Arab caucus in the Israeli
Knesset. And Mahmoud Abbas, the impotent, Hamlet-like Palestinian president-for-life.
Add in the blood-curdling Jew-hating official propaganda from Fatah and Hamas – promulgated in their media outlets (some EU-funded), and further disseminated by al Jazeera Arabic and the like, and the result is "spontaneous"
lone-wolf attacks.
Once these lone-wolf and small group attacks – like the stabbings, "rite-of-passage" (as The New York Times explains them) rock throwing, & Molotov cocktail hurling – reach a tipping
point, Fatah (al Aksa Martyrs), Hamas, and Islamic Jihad (among others) will seek to take charge of the now mobilized but temporarily directionless Palestinian violence.
Thursday's despicable murder of the Henkin couple shows how the organizations have in fact already begun taking over the "spontaneous" uprising.
The Henkin family car. Oct. 1, 2015. (Hatzalah)
Yes, obviously, there are brainless sometimes unconscionable actions
Jews have taken to add fuel to an explosive situation…ostentatious visits to
the Temple Mount have undoubtedly fed into Arab fantasies and conspiratorial
thinking.
Truth be told, there are plenty of nut-case Templars itching to force the hand of God and thus giving a shred of credence to ranting Arab imams. The idea of uniting millions of Muslims at a time when they are fragmented doesn't bother the apocalyptic Templars because they (and only they) know God's will.
There is also the widely assumed culpability of Jews in the Duma attack which
has understandably provoked Arab passions. Sadly, we know that Jews are capable of vile behavior. We know that most recently from the kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir in 2014.
That said, whatever our stupidities, hubris, and outright crimes,
the overall picture would be more or less the same. Because our "original
sin" is just being here.
In a Long War the mission is survival. The mission must define our strategy. And we need winning tactics day in and day out.
So, for example, you don't repeatedly raise enemy morale. The current and previous prime ministers have released enemy prisoners with blood on their hands many of whom
return to their old lifestyles. We've done so to "help Abu Mazen" to bring Gilad Shalit home or to retrieve the corpses of fallen IDF soldiers.
This sends a
signal that we are weak, indecisive, soft. That time is on the enemy's side.
Of course, this is just one example of failed tactics.
What to expect.
First, the Obama administration will offer a new "peace plan" –
encouraged by the Saudis and the Europeans. Like all previous plans since 1967 this one
will be aimed at pushing us back to the 1949 Armistice Lines (more or
less). For the Saudis, Abbas, and moderate Arabs
that's a good beginning in the phased destruction of Israel.
Secondly, we will be told that we have "a right to defend ourselves" – at the theoretical level. Just don't try to exercise that right in practice. Therefore, utilitarian, clever, and effective actions we take to enhance
our security – especially in Judea and Samaria and metropolitan Jerusalem –
will be condemned as disproportionate, labelled collective punishment, Apartheid, and a war crime.
Thirdly, our leaders will continue to bicker. Don't expect a national unity government. Not only is there no loyal opposition
(Herzog and Lapid and Leiberman) but there is no loyal coalition (Bennett and Shaked and Ariel).
Fourth, we will remain rudderless at the top. We have a smooth-talking Wizard who manages on good days
to keep most of the balls in the air… maybe, given the dysfunctional political
system he helps to perpetuate, that's about as much as we can expect.
Around us...
On any given day in the greater Middle East, Muslims slaughter Muslims
by the tens and by the hundreds. They bomb each other's mosques and shrines. The intra-Arab and intra-Muslim butchery in
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, North Africa, Sudan, and Yemen – will never draw as much action
from the UN and EU as, say, Israel temporarily closing a single road to Arab traffic to stop drive-by shootings.
We will hear that if only there were no "settlers" or
"settlements" the entire Middle East would be bucolic – with Sunni
lying down with Shiite, lambs with lions, Persians with Turks, Alawites with Salafis and Kurds with Arabs.
And Muslims would
practice war no more.
If only the Jews, ahem, "settlers" would go
away.
